The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead had a median house price of £545,000 in 2025 — one of the highest in England — yet its council tax bill for 2026-27 is £1,952.62, cheaper than every English council except six London boroughs and Newham. No other authority outside Greater London charges less.
Homecost's own postcode tool shows the true cost breakdown for any Windsor or Maidenhead address. Here is what the underlying Land Registry and council tax data say about the borough as a whole.
One of England's most expensive places to buy
Based on 2,090 residential sales recorded by HM Land Registry in 2025 (detached, semi-detached, terraced and flats), Windsor and Maidenhead's median sale price of £545,000 ranks 23rd-highest of the 295 English local authorities with enough sales to produce a reliable figure — comfortably inside the top 8%. That's up from a £530,000 median in 2024, a raw year-on-year rise of 2.8%.
The mix-adjusted picture is less clear-cut. The ONS/HM Land Registry UK House Price Index for Windsor and Maidenhead was essentially flat over the same window — down around 0.4% on a three-month-smoothed basis to June 2026 — while the England-wide index rose roughly 2.8%. Raw medians are sensitive to which properties happened to sell in a given year; the mix-adjusted index controls for that. The two measures disagreeing on direction isn't a contradiction so much as a reminder that a borough-wide median can be moved by a handful of large sales.
Within the borough, the priciest pocket is the SL5 postcode district around Ascot and Sunningdale, where 296 sales in 2025 produced a £683,750 median — well above the borough as a whole. Maidenhead (SL6) and Windsor (SL4) themselves, the two towns that give the borough its name, sat close together at £513,750 (1,096 sales) and £510,000 (561 sales) respectively.
| Area | 2025 median | Sales (n) |
|---|---|---|
| SL5 (Ascot / Sunningdale fringe) | £683,750 | 296 |
| SL6 (Maidenhead) | £513,750 | 1,096 |
| SL4 (Windsor) | £510,000 | 561 |
The property mix is unusually balanced for a commuter-belt authority: 29% of 2025 sales were detached houses, 26% flats, 25% semi-detached and 20% terraced — a spread that reflects everything from riverside apartments to large Ascot-fringe houses within one council boundary.
A council tax bill that doesn't match the price tag
Council tax is set locally and bears no fixed relationship to property values — Band D figures are frozen to 1991 valuations in England, and a borough's overall rate reflects its spending needs and tax base, not current sale prices. Windsor and Maidenhead illustrates that gap about as starkly as any authority in the country.
Of the 296 English billing authorities, only seven charge a lower Band D rate for 2026-27 than Windsor and Maidenhead's £1,952.62 — and all seven are in Greater London.
| Authority | Band D 2026-27 |
|---|---|
| Wandsworth | £1,028.21 |
| Westminster | £1,049.55 |
| City of London | £1,329.56 |
| Hammersmith and Fulham | £1,519.51 |
| Kensington and Chelsea | £1,666.65 |
| Tower Hamlets | £1,837.78 |
| Newham | £1,944.23 |
| Windsor and Maidenhead | £1,952.62 |
That makes Windsor and Maidenhead the cheapest council tax of any authority outside London — lower than every shire county, unitary and metropolitan borough in England bar the seven above it. For comparison, the England-wide average Band D for 2026-27 is £2,410.97, and several of the borough's near neighbours charge substantially more despite broadly similar or lower house prices: Waverley (£2,604.87), Elmbridge (£2,557.75), Wokingham (£2,497.70), Runnymede (£2,492.99) and Slough (£2,414.44) — all higher than Windsor and Maidenhead's rate.
What it costs to buy at the median
At the borough's £545,000 2025 median, HM Revenue & Customs' Stamp Duty Land Tax schedule produces a bill of £17,250 for a standard home mover. A first-time buyer pays exactly the same amount — the first-time buyer nil-rate band and discount both stop applying once the price passes £500,000, so the relief is worth precisely £0 to a first-time buyer at this borough's typical price. Buying a second property or a buy-to-let at the median adds the flat 5-percentage-point additional-dwelling surcharge, taking the bill to £44,500.
| Buyer type | Price | SDLT payable |
|---|---|---|
| Home mover | £545,000 | £17,250 |
| First-time buyer | £545,000 | £17,250 (relief withdrawn above £500,000) |
| Additional property / buy-to-let | £545,000 | £44,500 |
Figures calculated via Homecost's Stamp Duty calculator, which covers all four UK regimes and every relief and surcharge.
The monthly reality
For a buyer putting down a 25% deposit (£136,250) and borrowing £408,750 over 25 years, the Bank of England's most recently quoted 75%-LTV five-year fixed rate — 4.32%, as of April 2026 — implies a monthly repayment of roughly £2,230. Add the council tax instalment, £1,952.62 spread over twelve months, or about £163 a month, and the mortgage-plus-council-tax total comes to around £2,393 a month, before energy, insurance, maintenance or ground rent on any leasehold flat.
Set against the England-wide average Band D of £2,410.97 (about £201 a month), Windsor and Maidenhead's lower council tax saves a typical household roughly £38 a month compared with the national average — real money, but modest next to a mortgage payment nearly fifteen times the size. The headline "cheapest outside London" claim is genuine; its practical effect on the total monthly bill at these prices is a rounding error, not a discount.
Actual mortgage rates depend on a buyer's deposit, lender and credit profile, and will differ from this indicative figure. Speak to a qualified mortgage adviser before acting on any borrowing decision.
Energy performance doesn't follow the same pattern
It's worth a caveat before treating Windsor and Maidenhead as cheap to run in every sense. Among domestic Energy Performance Certificates with a matched address, 35.2% of the borough's stock rates C or above — below the national linked-register average of 39.9%. A low council tax bill doesn't imply an efficient housing stock; the borough's older riverside and period properties, some in conservation areas that restrict retrofit work, weigh the average down in the same way premium period districts elsewhere in the country tend to underperform newer estates on energy.
Compare for yourself
Windsor and Maidenhead sits inside the wider ring of authorities where the £500,000 stamp duty relief ceiling routinely bites — mapped in full in Homecost's commuter-ring stamp duty analysis. Its low-tax, high-price profile is the small-authority mirror of the pattern documented across London's council tax vs house price inversion, and sits at the opposite end of the spectrum from the cheap-to-buy, dear-to-run authorities found elsewhere in England. For the mechanics of how council tax bands are set in the first place, see Homecost's guide to council tax bands.
Search any Windsor, Maidenhead or Ascot postcode on Homecost to see the full breakdown — mortgage, council tax, energy rating and stamp duty — for an individual property, or browse more regional price data across England and Wales.
Figures based on 2,090 Land Registry transactions and 25,559 linked EPC certificates for Windsor and Maidenhead, and 2026-27 council tax rates for all 296 English billing authorities. Data queried 18 September 2026.